Chapter One

 

It was the strangest little water craft that I had ever seen. Bright yellow, shining as it bobbed along on the tumultuous waves that were thick and dark in the overcast evening. Roiling grey clouds overhead promised a hell of a storm, and that submarine worked its way closer at the rate of a golden Labrador doggy-paddling after a stick.

The lookout had rung a bell in the crow’s nest. The old fashioned alarm system was connected by a system of wires to the captain’s quarters, the mess hall, the hall outside of the crew’s sleeping chambers and -of course- my office. The sound of the tiny bell on my end of the call starting to tinkle as the wire bounced it up and down startled me at first. I was bent over my desk, with papers scattered, and that bell had not chimed in the two weeks I had been onboard. Neither had the modern, electric sirens which would imply a creature attack. That realization calmed me.

The alarm, though, confused me; sleep was hard to come by, with the constant rocking of the ship. I had no natural affinity for the water, no sea legs to speak of, and although the sickness had abated after the first few days as long as I drank my ginger tea, my mind was sluggish.

Alarm, I came to the slow realization. A generic alarm. It meant all hands to our stations, whether that was the engine room or the helm or the gunner’s turret. Whether it would be wiser to stay in the relative shelter of my centrally located office, or whether I should head to the deck to be more quickly able to evacuate, I did not know. The Captain would head up, and so I decided that was what I would do, as well.

Not only was it my place, my duty to be by his side to record and report any actions taken, but he was the only one in that place whose presence could make me feel something like safe. I took my leather ledger. I never left it unattended, as was the duty of my station.

The narrow hall, metal painted white, shifted below me and I stumbled into a closed door. “Darn,” I exclaimed, and just as I had righted myself, the door swung inward with a creak. Three bodies rushed past me and one barreled straight into my shoulder, spinning me to the ground.

“Out of the way!”

The men went running up the stairs and onto the deck. Only one hung back. It was Roshin, the Arab with the tunnel-eyes, rough stubble, and a rangy build. He offered his hand.

“Are you alright, Jacob?”

My head was still spinning, my pen’s clip had come off the cover of my ledger. I scooped it up and stuck it into my mouth so that I could accept his hand. His were large and a deep brown, mine were small and white and soft by comparison. He had worked with his hands before stepping onto this boat and he would work with them again if he lived to step off of it. As he pulled me to my feet and steadied me -there had to be muscle hidden under his modest clothes- I grumbled around my pen, “Mm-hm. Thank you.”

“Go on. Let’s see what fresh Hell…”

It was the most I had ever heard him speak. He kept his voice hardly above a whisper. He sounded intelligent and I found myself stealing a glance back at him as I climbed the stairs; I was not afraid, exactly, but I was not immune to the intensity of his presence. Plenty of the men on the ship were criminals, plenty liked to throw their weight around, but Roshin, I thought, had to have seen more than all of them, and was capable of more than most because of that.

On the immense deck of the freighter, men gathered at the starboard side. Roshin went to join them, while I looked aft and then stern, and found the captain through the glass of the enclosed control room. His smooth head, his face and neck decorated with tattoos, his short but fit body leaning forward over the comm systems. I ran to join him, and he hardly glanced up as I entered. My insignificance stung me anew.

He went on speaking into a handheld, “This is the Captain of the USS Baton Rouge, you are approaching a protected vessel, you do not have clearance to dock. Stop and identify yourself, or you will be blown out of the water.” His voice was deep and rough, but as easy and steely as the architecture of the ship, as exalted. If it was a terrorist approaching in that yellow sub -environmental or otherwise- then the Captain would sink it without batting an eye.

My heart had begun to pound in my chest. My palms were sweaty as they gripped my leather ledger. I had not seen the ship’s guns used, and the idea of it gave me a thrill which turned sickening a moment later. There had been so many wavers to sign, so much talk in the mess hall of the danger of one of these missions, one in three would die, they said, although the actual sum was one in three-point-two-six, and it applied not to individuals within the same mission but to missions as a whole; about one in three ended in shipwreck and mass death. The other two out of three might have an accident at the drilling site, or a flu outbreak that would result in one casualty or medivac out -lost work incidents- but most of the crew would return mostly intact. More than half of the assigned crew had deserted before we shipped out. Then, once we got onboard, there had been nothing but monotony and open water for fifteen days.

I did not want to be someone who wanted to see someone sunk in the ocean for breeching a protected zone around government property. At the same time, I was a representative of the company Carius Industries. And due to their government contract, any failure to fulfill my duty constituted failing the United States as well. If it had to be done, I had to witness and document.

The Captain listened with a headset pressed to only one ear. Hearing nothing, he switched to a different frequency and repeated himself. Again, he seemed to get no response. He switched to the ship’s intercom system and his voice blared out of speakers all around. “This is the Captain of the USS Baton Rouge, you are approaching a protected zone around this vessel. You do not have clearance to dock. If you come any closer, I am authorized to fire on you. Stop and identify yourself immediately.”

The men gathered at the ship’s railing shouted, “Shoot it, Captain!”

“Blow it up!”

Roshin looked back to watch the Captain, but his eyes flicked to me and I had to look away. The Captain’s mouth was a firm line. His eyes narrowed, making the teardrop tattoo at the right one’s corner lift just a hair higher. He was considering, he looked out of the glass encasing us, to where another man was up on the gun turret, waiting for his signal. I could feel the back of my neck prickling, afraid that he would give the signal and afraid that he would not. If the yellow submarine got much closer, it would be within range to put a hole in our side if it self-destructed, or if it had some kind of torpedo under the water line.

I squinted, lifted my reading glasses up off the bridge of my nose so I could see it better. It certainly did not look like something an enemy nation would have sent; it did not look like it belonged in the Pacific at all; it was more suited for Lake Michigan. At its front, where the dark waves lapped at it, I thought I could see two small tubes mounted on protruding metal, square right-angles unlike the rest of it.

“Captain,” I found myself speaking, nervous but excited, “I think there are harpoon guns mounted on the front. This might be a small-time fisherman without a comm’s system. It looks homemade…”

He looked at me out of the corner of his dark eye. “A poacher. It might be, or it might be a drone filled with C-4. It has no electronic license, and it shouldn’t be in these waters…” He moved to the door and called to the gunner, “One shot, non-explosive. Give him a chance to abandon ship.”

The men crowded at the railing groaned in disappointment, although Roshin had his eyes shut, his hand clutching a necklace he kept tucked into his shirts and his mouth was forming whispered words. Another man reached out and gave him a shove.

“Knock off that ‘Akbar’ shit!”

Roshin’s tunnel eyes were dark. He moved away, further down the deck, and continued his prayer, this time with his eyes open.

The gunner was switching from one mounted gun to another, loading the chamber with a massive bullet, and taking aim.

“Wait!” I shouted, seeing a flash of white movement somehow in the submarine through the darkness of its wide window. “He’s coming out!”

“Hold fire,” the Captain ordered, heeding my warning, and my heart jumped up into my throat.

The yellow submarine’s top hatch handle spun, then flipped open. A grey head appeared, and out climbed a figure that was unmistakably an old woman with broad shoulders and wide, maternal hips. Somebody’s grandmother, alone in a tiny submarine out on the Pacific Ocean.

The men at the railing cackled at the sight of her, one wolf-whistled and some bent over and went to the ground from laughing so hard. Roshin and I found each other’s gazes again, and he gave me the slightest nod of his head. It was instantly gratifying, but it was not enough; I looked to the Captain and found him squinting at the woman, arms crossed. He did not look my way as he headed back into the control room and spoke to her over the intercom.

“Woman in the yellow submarine, remain where my gunner can see you. I’m coming over with my bomb technician to search your vessel before you’ll be allowed to dock. Do you understand?”

She unmistakably gave a thumb’s up, then climbed all the way out of the manhole and sat on top of her vessel, with her legs hung over one side. Her grey hair was cut short and matronly around her square face, but still caught the breeze. She lifted her face to it, looking content and totally harmless.

A bald man probably in his fifties, tall and fit for his age, broke away from the dozen men gathered at the railing. He had not been cheering with the others, more dignified by far. He was just smiling, amused with the afternoon’s turn of events. “By ‘bomb technician’, I take it that you mean me?”

“You are correct,” the Captain said. “Get what you need and meet me at the Zodiac.”

The bald man -Perry, his name was- moved briskly for the stairs and took them down, while I followed the Captain to where one of the dozen inflatable Zodiac rafts was stored in a compartment under the ship’s deck. I was nervous. “Should you really go over there, Captain? What if something goes wrong? I really think our superiors would prefer it if you sent someone of a lower rank for the initial investigation-.”

“-Stop,” the Captain ordered, as I had been rambling. “I’m going, and so are you. What kind of captain would I be if I left this to someone else?”

The smart kind, I thought, but didn’t dare say it. He cared more about keeping the respect of the crew than following policy. “Me?”

“You’re going to have to document my flagrant disregard of policy, aren’t you?”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure if he was being truly adversarial or if he were just mocking my position as clerk, scribe, reporter, snitch. Honestly, if he asked me nicely not to say anything, I would keep my mouth shut. But it wouldn’t happen. “I suppose. What makes that man Perry qualified to be your bomb technician?”

The Captain held the tightly wrapped square of plastic out over the edge of the ship, with a single tether tied and expertly knotted to the railing. He pulled a ripcord and it triggered a chemical reaction inside of the raft, causing it to hiss and inflate in a few seconds as it fell to the choppy surface of the ocean. Just looking at it made me feel dizzy. Paddles were stowed nearby, and a rope ladder to get down.

“What makes him qualified is that he’s the closest thing to an expert I’ve got out here.”

“Was he Army? Navy? Marines?” I certainly would think so, even watching him as he comes back up the stairs securing a fanny pack around his waist.

“Army.”

“And he worked in the field of disarming explosives?”

“No. He just knows bombs.”

It did not make me feel any better, and I realized that if I made it back to the Baton Rouge, I would be up all night reading personnel files. I should have done it already, probably -to know what I was dealing with- but apart from the Captain, the crew were the least interesting part of my work. They were hardly people to me, just expenses and liabilities and tools.

“After you.” The Captain gestured for me to descend the ladder first. He hated me. Found me irritating, at least. Wanted me to suffer.

“Hold that for you?” Perry offered, hand extended.

He meant my ledger, which I was never to let out of my possession. I shook my head, tucked it up against my neck, holding it between my chest and my chin. Then I gingerly swung one leg out, finding perch on the ropes, and started a slow climb down with arms tense and shaking all the way. I was pummeled by wind that made the entire ladder drift with me on it and made my stomach drop. The ladder ended before it touched the water. I had to reach out with one leg to try to hook the Zodiac with a toe, and drag it in. Even sure that it was under me, my transition was graceless. Somehow, I dunked into the water up to one ankle as I flung myself down into the cradle of the raft.

Perry was right behind me, settling down onto his haunches, smiling a carefree smile, inhaling deep the scent of the sea breeze. The Captain came last, dropping two paddles and standing easily with his legs spread as he produced a knife and sliced the tether. It was a small craft made for at most six people.

“Let’s go.”

Each of the two men began to paddle, alternating sides, while I sat at the back and watched our slow progress. The woman with the grey hair laid down across the top of her submarine. Even from a distance and even with her age, she gave the impression of a sunbathing beauty; she would not burn, the day was not bright between the coming storm and the usual smog. It seemed that even I could appreciate a woman’s figure, her glamorous presence, after a few weeks at sea with no female presence around.

The closer we got to the yellow submarine, the more interesting its makeup became to me. With my glasses lifted once again, I squinted and made out its crude seams, single propellor at the back and quite surely single engine, because there would not be room for two. The metal protruding at the front of the vessel appeared to be two moveable arms folded inward, and those certainly were harpoon guns, unloaded, welded on top of them. So she was maneuvering underwater with the plans to grab things, and possibly to spear fish. For food? Or for defense? Those little guns could do nothing against the creature from the fault, except, maybe, make it angry.

Thinking about it made me instinctually look over the edge of the Zodiac, into the water, clear only for a few feet down and growing darker, so deep a person couldn’t really comprehend it. That thing could be down there. Other things, too. Other faults in the ocean floor shifted all the time; something smaller could have come up without anybody noticing. Something even meaner. Something that zapped like an electric eel, or stabbed a poisonous barb that could pop our little raft and drag us down…

The sea air washed over a sheen of sweat that had broken out on my face. I felt even smaller than usual. I looked at the captain and just the sight of him eased me a little.

A few long minutes of the two older men paddling feverishly in front of me. Soon their backs were both damp in the indents of their shoulders, their back muscles, the canals along their spines and the Captain’s dimples at the back of his exquisitely narrow hips, where a gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants. I never really noticed the heat except on other people, but took the time to roll my sleeves up, trying to keep the cuffs crisp and straight.

By the time we reached the yellow submarine, its grey-haired driver had sat up and surveyed us with hard eyes. “Hello. Welcome aboard.” She extended her hand downward.

Lips pressed into a straight line, the Captain loosed his shirt so that it hung over the gun. He accepted her hand, reached up with his other to get ahold of the lip of the open hatch, got one foot midway up the body of the vessel and pushed off. Up he went, dragging himself but also being helped by the woman. He then turned and offered Perry the same hand. Up the big old man went. Their combined weight sank the sub lower in the water.

“Stay in the raft, Jacob.”

I deflated, I had wanted so badly to look inside the submarine. But I was nothing if not a follower of orders, and somebody had to say behind, keep the raft nearby. Hopefully there would be time to inspect the submarine later.

The Captain leaned over the porthole to survey the inner chamber of the vessel from above. “Check it out, Perry.” The older man climbed down inside, while the other two stayed on top. The Captain addressed the woman. “I’m Captain Alvarado. Who are you?”

“Captain Bennett,” her tone was cool, she looked off into the distance. I scribbled a log of the conversation in shorthand, just to be thorough.

“Your vessel lacks an electronic identification, and comms systems, too? What’s its purpose?”

“Its purpose? It doesn’t really have one, anymore. It’s decommissioned.” Her answer was slow. I didn’t get the impression that she was searching for a lie, maybe she just didn’t feel like answering. Her eyes showed irritation, exhaustion.

“Why are you out here? Why did you approach the Baton Rouge?”

She considered. “I was lost. I have no navigation, and a storm swept me out. I haven’t seen another ship, or any land. I ran out of food days ago.”

A sound of a boot on metal, an unzipping, and then Perry’s hand appeared out of the manhole, offering a foil-wrapped protein bar. Captain Bennett accepted it.

“Thank you.” She tore it open with her teeth, which were nice for her age, big and white but not so white that they must be fake. She must be at least in her sixties, if not seventy years old.

“He came prepared,” I observed, and Captain Bennett turned her eyes on me for a moment, examining my ledger and my shirt. Her eyes lingered on my red hair.

“He did…”

The Captain asked more blunt questions, and got blunt answers. “Were you sent here by a terrorist organization?”

“No.”

“Were you sent here by any nation’s government?”

“No.”

“Do you have anything on this vessel that will harm the Baton Rouge or my crew?”

She had taken another bite, and chewed it slowly, swallowing before answering. “No.”

“Did you come here with the intent of sabotaging the Baton Rouge or its mission?”

“No. I don’t know what your mission might be. Is it an oil tanker?”

It was, but the Captain said nothing, just looking at her hard. “How’s it coming, Perry?”

From inside the submarine, a sound came like a seal being broken, like a refrigerator being opened. Captain Bennett’s lips pursed, her slender, arched eyebrow raised. A sound like the refrigerator door closing. The man climbed back up the ladder, his bald head emerging first into the warm sea air. He had a small, black flashlight in his mouth. He stopped there, with one arm propped up on the roof. Took the flashlight from between his lips. “There’s a basic engine, very old make. Basic access panel, not trying to hide anything. No room to hide anything, even if she wanted to. Controls are smart, efficient. No chemical residue detected anywhere. No life support, no water supply or filtration system. No food onboard, like she says. I think she was spelunking, got lost in a storm. There’s no bomb onboard.”

“Are you sure?”

“I guess -since we’re talking hypothetically about a bomb in an oil tanker right under where I lay my head at night- I must be pretty sure.”

That answer seemed to satisfy the Captain, and he gestured for Perry to go ahead and climb back into the Zodiac raft. “You’re cleared to dock your sub with us, Captain Bennett. We’ll resupply you and then you can be on your way. Take the lead, head for the aft of the ship, I’ll signal them to let you in.”

“Thank you, Captain, for your hospitality.”

“It’s not hospitality,” he replied. “It’s my legal duty. You won’t want to stay long. The men call this ship the ‘Last Chance’. Its destination and its mission make it the most dangerous job in America, or maybe the world. It’s a skeleton crew of felons and fuckups with nowhere else left to make an honest living, and the jobs are up for grabs because one in three men who work this beat die doing it.”

“One in three-point-two-six,” I corrected, and all three sets of eyes turned to me. “That’s the official figure, although it doesn’t so much apply to the individual, it’s more that one in three-point-two-six crews get wiped out when their ship is sunk by terrorism or unnatural disaster. There’s a roughly one-third chance that everybody dies, and a roughly two-thirds chance that nobody dies.”

“Who are you?” Captain Bennett asked, still looking placid.

“I’m Jacob August Bos, Ma’am. I’m the ship’s clerk. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s lovely to meet you too, Jacob.”